Heaven is a Place on Earth - Breakdown - Greatest Pop Key Change?

[@danielo174]

great video. More Great Pop key changes please. This is gold.

[@ImpliedMusic]

You got it!

[@puffinwrangler7557]

Thanks again for the insight. My 15-year-old drum student asked if we could learn this. I was like, what, really?? But the drum part is deceptively challenging, laid down by the great Kenny Aronoff. So we've had a blast playing along to this fun song. Cheers!

[@alfieholloway]

Bless you for recognising this because all my life I’ve been loving this and was always blown away by the key change

[@dwp2659]

awesome - well done!!!

[@ImpliedMusic]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@CarlosMartinez-gr1rp]

Thanks!

[@ImpliedMusic]

Thank you!

[@lighterwaves5659]

Ive studied this song...the chords/voicings i found were a little different...but it sounds good no matter how its played...the chords/melody/rhythm has been a $mash 3X...Belinda, Bon Jovi "You Give Love a Bad Name" Ava Max "Kings & Queens"

[@michaeldomino8879]

Real old fashioned sing along hit. Perfect for car vocals.

[@LeeGee]

Just watching to see if you compare it to the Patti Smith song... co-written with Springsteen.

[@rome8180]

Adam Neely has a video about the key change in Celine Dion's version of "All by Myself." It's truly elegant stuff. I can't remember who did the arrangement for the song. Other songwriters I think have genius key changes are Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, and Burt Bacharach. Paul McCartney had a couple of pretty great ones in "Penny Lane."

[@ImpliedMusic]

yes! that Neely video should be required viewing for all of us. and that may actually be the greatest pop key change of all time, though to perform it you've got to be an amazing singer.

[@itnefer4787]

While I'm not going to tone down your excitement about this song, as the key changes are truly great examples of songwriting (with meaningful lyrics), but the guy who needs to be recognized here is Desmond Child - much of it is his work. First, in 1986 he wrote Bonnie Tyler's "If You Were a Woman and I Was a Man". Soon after that, he reused it co-writing Bon Jovi's "Livin’ On a Prayer" and "You Give Love a Bad Name". A year later "Heaven is a Place On Earth" came out with very similar choruses , the bass guitar essentially lifted from "Prayer", and the choir intro taken from 'You Give Love". According to some websites, Desmon Child sued and won.

[@ImpliedMusic]

Thanks for this insight!

[@katiedewitt4197]

Would you describe the final key change as a chromatic mediant with the F# acting as a common tone through the measure? Or as a borrowed chord in the new key? Great video! We enjoyed your analysis a lot!

[@ImpliedMusic]

@@katiedewitt4197 great question. It’s a common tone modulation, up a whole step, so not a mediant. But so cany, so smart. And not really a borrowed chord, since the modulation is permanent. So yeah, a common tone modulation, a bit brutal, just bumped up a step, but so cool because of the D#minor sonority. This why I love this song.

[@paulinskipukprogressive4903]

Just discovered your channel - Love your musical shorts with piano figures and moves Really appreciate your valuable material and your helpful and interesting presentation I am writing music, but still learning composition. At the moment, very interested in broken chords moves with diads Also, Bacharach, style piano And unusual keyboard accompaniments where some of the notes are not obvious choices, but yet work incredibly well for reasons which I haven’t figured out yet ! Thanks for your videos, I will be going through all of them

[@ImpliedMusic]

Thank you, welcome. It’s a lot of videos to go through…😊

[@paulinskipukprogressive4903]

@@ImpliedMusic Are you doing some more composing ? I liked your approach to the fantasy theme